


untitled

by LtTanyaBoone



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2648372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t even like Carmilla.</p>
            </blockquote>





	untitled

**Author's Note:**

> I published this on tumblr about a month ago, so way before what seems like the final break between Danny and Laura on the show.

She doesn’t even _like_ Carmilla.

Like, this thing, it’s not a triangle. Danny is here for _Laura_ , she loves _Laura_ , wants to be with _Laura_. She has no desire whatsoever to spend time with the vampire. The girl tried to freaking murder her. Grabbed her throat and tossed her around, and Danny has no illusion that, if it hadn’t been for Laura begging Carmilla to let her go, to not hurt her, if Laura hadn’t been there, Carmilla would’ve killed her.

This is not a triangle, because Danny knows Carmilla does not care at all about her. Carmilla is here for Laura, just like her. She barely tolerates Danny on her good days, keeps glaring at her at her mediocre days and hisses possessively when Danny gets too close to Laura on her bad ones.

This is a compass, two legs originating from one point. Danny loves Laura and Carmilla loves Laura and Laura loves them. That’s their whole connection, nothing else.

She has no desire whatsoever to be around Carmilla. Really not. But Laura has been gone for three days, and Danny misses her. And the only thing she can think of that might help with that is to sleep in Laura’s bed, be surounded by her smell and things. Maybe that will help Danny sleep.

Only when she enters the room, she finds Laura’s bed already occupied. A centuries old Eastern European vampire has curled up in it, Laura’s yellow pillow hugged to her chest.

Danny pauses, then creeps closer, sinking into Laura’s office chair to contemplate the issue. She does not wish to be any closer to Carmilla, has actively avoided being within arm’s reach of the other woman. Danny isn’t a complete fool, she knows that Carmilla, if she wanted to, could move so fast Danny would not even see it coming. It being death. But the vampire has shown restraint, though that may be because of Laura. And Laura is not here right now, Laura is miles and miles away visiting her father.

With a sigh, Danny eyes Carmilla’s bed. Not where she wanted to sleep, but it is still in Laura’s room and she already feels better, and more importantly, tired. It’s surprisingly comfortable, she finds, once she lays down on it. And it smells a little like Laura, too. Maybe because Carmilla keeps stealing her laundry detergent.

Her eyes are drifting shut and Danny starts to relax, drift off to sleep-

Suddenly, she’s awake again, wide eyes pinned on Carmilla’s form on Laura’s bed. Watches her face, takes in the closed eyes as Danny’s heartbeat gradually slows down. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she had already started dreaming. Ever since Carmilla almost strangled her, she keeps jolting awake in the middle of the night, gasping, feeling a hand squeeze around her throat, slowly stealing her breath-

There it is again, that _hiss_. And this time, Danny sees Carmilla’s brows twitch. She keeps her eyes trained on the other woman’s face, waits, breathing shallow. Carmilla’s eyebrows twitch again, she frowns in her sleep, mouth opening to allow her to bare her fangs with another hiss…

She’s dreaming. A _nightmare_.

The realization hits Danny unprepared..

Laura told her about them. Well, not really what Carmilla is dreaming about, though Danny has a feeling it may involve darkness and feeling as if you’re drowning in blood. But Laura mentioned Carmilla’s nightmares, told her whenever she stayed up the night to talk to her, when Carmilla was too terrified to go back to sleep.

“Carmilla?”

Her voice is barely a whisper in the room and Danny holds her breath. She’s not entirely sure that Carmilla heard her come in, maybe she was already fast asleep and thinks she’s alone. Danny doesn’t want to find out what happens when a vampire takes you for an intruder, no thank you. She has no wish to provide Carmilla with an excuse to hurt her.

The vampire shifts, fingers digging into the material of Laura’s pillow. Her lips curl back, exposing her fangs in a snarl, distorting her face.

“Carmilla, wake up,” Danny tells her, voice louder as she sits up. She knows that stage, knows it from Laura’s recounting, and even though Danny doesn’t like Carmilla, she would still like to protect her from what will inevitably come next. But Carmilla has already started thrashing around and before Danny can force herself to reach out and touch her in hopes of jolting her from the dream, the vampire as curled in on herself again and soft whimpers fill the room.

Danny gets up, sitting down on Laura’s bed, inspecting Carmilla’s small form. She’d never have thought that the other woman could be so small, so… _tiny_. She’s never seen Carmilla like that, always felt like Carmilla’s presence commanded attention. It’s different from her usual “blending into the shadows” trick that she pulled in the past, when she made herself barely noticeable as Danny and Laura worked on figuring out how to find out what happened to Betty and the other girls with Carmilla in the same room. Coming to think of it, she has never seen Carmilla scared, not even when they overpowered her and tied her to a chair (and starved her for nine days, though Danny would like to forget about that one).

She always half-blocked out what Laura was saying when she talked about her roommate’s nightmares. Not because Laura was talking, but because the subject of the conversation was a person that Danny can barely tolerate. She never thought she’d ever be in a position to need that knowledge.

As she frowns down at her, Carmilla makes a sound as if an animal being tortured and Danny can see the pink tears on her cheeks.

“Car- Mircalla,” she corrects herself, hesitating before she reaches out, touching Carmilla’s shoulder. “Mircalla, wake up.”

Her given name coupled with Danny shaking her shoulder makes Carmilla’s eyes fly open with a gasp. And even though Danny pulled her hand back immediately, she is absolutely unprepared when Carmilla flings herself at her, knocking them to the floor. Her head hits it and Danny sees stars explode behind her eyelids and thinks that now she will have to pay the price for her stupidity. She isn’t Laura, she should never have touched the nightmare-plagued vampire, she knew Carmilla hated her, why did she have to be so stupid-

But there is not the feeling of fangs sinking into her throat. Instead, there’s a heavy weight on her chest and hands tugging on the material of her tank top and sobs filling the room-

Danny opens her eyes to find Carmilla lying on her, head turned to hide her face, but Danny can feel the wetness of her tears, and her arms curl around the other woman, one moving up to cradle her head.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, trying to think of what Laura would say. What Laura says in these moments, when Carmilla wakes from a nightmare and the ghosts of her past are haunting her.

Carmilla says something that might be German, but Danny has no idea what it means. She doesn’t even understand contemporary German, never took a lesson in it, so understanding a centuries old version is just hopeless.

The floor is cold and it’s starting to seep into Danny. They need to get up, her head is throbbing, but she doesn’t want to. Surprisingly, she doesn’t want to tell Carmilla to move, doesn’t want to push her away. There is just something about her like this, something that is so decidedly un-Carmilla that Danny actually feels protective of the other woman.

She’s still trying to think of something to distract the other woman when the vampire shifts, pushes herself up into a sitting position and slips off Danny. When she sits, she finds Carmilla’s shoulders still shaking, sees her shivering, and even though Danny doesn’t have her hearing, she can make out the soft sniffles.

Her body protests as she gets off the floor and stretches before she moves to turn on the lights. The brightness hurts her eyes briefly and Danny blinks, waiting for her sight to adjust before she switches on the small lamps in addition to the big one on the ceiling. Carmilla stays covered between the two beds, back pressed against her own. Her face is hidden from Danny by a curtain of her dark curls.

Danny grabs Laura’s pillow and blanket and a packet of tissues before she sits down on the floor next to Carmilla, wordlessly offering the pillow to her. Carmilla snatches it, hugs it to her chest and curls herself around it.

“Tissue?” Danny asks her, holding out the packet, but Carmilla doesn’t move. Her breaths are deep, regular. Once, Danny woke up after a night in Laura’s bed, Laura already showering. Carmilla had been sleeping in her own bed and Danny had freaked for a second when she’d realized the other woman hadn’t been breathing. And then she’d remembered, the dull ache of her throat had reminded her what Carmilla was, what she is. Sometimes, Carmilla is breathing, when she is awake and around humans. Other times Danny catches her being so engrossed with something, most often a book, that her chest won’t move for minutes.

When she drapes the blanket over them, Carmilla glares up at her from bleary eyes.

“If you breathe a word about this to anyone, I will _end_ you,” she threatens, but her voice is hoarse from tears and she has never looked more harmless to Danny.

“I wet the bed until I was eight,” she shrugs in response, closing her eyes and resting her head back against Carmilla’s bed. She feels Carmilla’s eyes on her but ignores the urge to hide, to shift and fidget. Carmilla is still breathing, and Danny can feel her shift closer, Carmilla’s knee touching her thigh. She doesn’t acknowledge that, either, but forces herself to breathe regularly, slow, even.

Her cell phone chirps in the quietness of the room. Danny opens her eyes, blinks, tries to figure out where she is. Her ass is numb and her neck is groaning in protest at the movement. Her hips are hurting, there’s a weight on her crossed legs and when Danny looks down, her eyes widen at the sight of Carmilla’s head resting in her lap. Laura’s pillow lies on the floor, having fallen from her grasp. At the angle of Carmilla’s neck and shoulders, Danny winces in pain before casting a look around for her cell phone. It fell from the desk where she’d placed it, the display lighting briefly before it turns off.

Carmilla stirs briefly when Danny moves to grab her phone, but she stays in her lap, seemingly fast asleep as Danny bites back a groan at the time flashing on her phone. It’s half past nine, she’s missed her first class and given that she still has a sleepy vampire in her lap, probably won’t make it to the next, either.

She has three missed calls from Laura. What woke her was the text message notification.

_Summer Society meeting wear you out and make you sleep through your alarm, or are you just too busy to answer your phone?_

Danny rolls her eyes before she goes to type, fingers hesitating briefly.

_Actually, Carmilla is the one who made me miss my alarm._

It doesn’t take long before Laura replies, and Danny can actually hear her exasperated tone.

_What did she do now? Please tell me you two didn’t get into /another/ fight._

Danny shakes her head at the accusation, but then again, Laura has probably lost count of the number of times she has complained about the vampire to her. And she has a sinking suspicion that Carmilla did the same regarding Danny.

_Not exactly. Though she did threaten to kill me if I ever tell anyone about her nightmares._

She’s almost dozed off again when Laura’s reply makes her cell phone chirp again.

_That explains her lack of replies. Is she okay?_

Now that is a question Danny definitely doesn’t have an answer to. So instead, she snaps a quick picture of Carmilla’s sleeping face and sends it.

 _Idk but my legs definitely aren’t._ she adds, sighing as she examines her predicament. Before last night, she would’ve shaken Carmilla off. Hell, before last night, the vampire wouldn’t have dreamed of falling asleep in her lap. But now she is, she’s sleeping with her head resting in Danny’s lap, and as uncomfortable as it may be, Danny doesn’t have the heart to wake her. She looks… peaceful. Like a normal eighteen year old college student.

This time, the notification makes Carmilla twitch briefly and Danny quickly turns off the sounds on her phone before she opens Laura’s message.

_Awww!_

The word has Danny rolling her eyes before she continues reading.

_You should wake her up, she looks like she needs to eat. And you probably do, too._

Upon closer inspection, there are dark circles around Carmilla’s eyes.

“Will you stop this nonsense?”

Carmilla’s voice is loud and raspy and has Danny almost dropping her phone in shock as she jumps.

“Jesus Christ!” she murmurs, moving her hands back as the vampire sits up, rolling her shoulders.

“Do not use the Lord’s name at this ungodly hour,” Carmilla mutters, getting up and crawling into her bed, face turned into the wall. Danny moves to stand, barely suppressing a groan when her hips and legs protest at the change of position. And she thought she was in form.

She watches Carmilla, hesitates before she picks up Laura’s pillow, holding it out to the other woman. Even though Carmilla’s eyes are closed, her hand reaches out and snatches the pillow before she buries her face in it and in Laura’s smell.

“Do you, I mean, I don’t know, you look a little pale-”

“I’m covered on the blood supply front. You can stop pretending like you care.”

Okay, now, that actually hurt. Not because Danny suddenly likes Carmilla, but, she did stay the night, after the girl had a nightmare, and she’s just making sure she is fine, there is no need to be so cold and cruel and-

“Fine,” she snaps, stalking from the room and slamming the door shut behind her. The hallway is silent and empty, most students are attending classes. With a sigh, Danny looks down at the phone in her hands, the text reply screen still open.

_She woke up and told me she’s good. Gotta go and see if I can make it to class. Call you later?_

And then she’s rushing down the hallway to her room in hopes of getting changed and still making it to class fast enough to be “fashionably late” and not “disrespectful and rude”. Laura really can’t get back here fast enough.


End file.
